English Version
„Pimp up my chair“ – with this slogan AIT and the Swiss furniture manufacturer Dietiker have invited European architects and interior designers to become part of our „Charity Chair“ project. The challenge is to redesign the wooden chair “Ono” following their very own ideas being allowed to do with it whatever they like. All chairs will afterwards be auctioned for charitable purposes: all revenues go to a children’s project in the South African township Langa near Cape Town. The South African outpost of the diocese of Augsburg will make sure that all money will arrive exactly where it is needed. It is the orphanage in Langa who cares for children having lost their parents due to Aids, crime, lack of health care and terrible social conditions. This AIT charity project has first been launched in 2008 and is taking place a second time in this soccer world cup year. As from June the chairs will be presented in the AIT-ArchitekturSalons as well as in several German cities where visitors of the exhibitions can make a bid themselves. The final event will take place in autumn in Berlin. There will be 120 chairs – and AIT is celebrating its 120th anniversary this year. We take this reason to even enhance both the charity project and the exhibitions by public parties in the ArchitekturSalons offering various auctions and showing live pictures of the orphanage in Langa. The intention is to bring bidders and buyers of the chairs and the beneficiary of the project closer together. By the way, the Dietiker chair “Ono” costs 300 EURO – even before its redesign. The architects and interior designers who have been working with the chair come from Scandinavia, Great Britain, Benelux, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. 100 chairs have been allocated directly to architects and interior designers, 15 are being worked on by universities and children taking part in our AIT children workshops. Meanwhile a lot of chairs have been returned to us and the results exceed by far our expectations!